June 11, 2018

Yellow Salsify

Yellow Salsify~ tragopogon dubius

The development of this flower is very interesting. Years ago I was fortunate to capture the three stages of its life cycle in one photo (the second photo). First, the closed pod appears and inside it the flower develops: suddenly the pod opens and the yellow flower appears. During its flower stage it closes at night and on dark or rainy days, and re-opens the next day. At the final maturity of the flower it closes, and inside the pod the seeds develop, after which it opens one last time and the seed head appears to allow the wind to spread the little parachutes of seeds.

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I love the design of this one. I’m sure I wouldn’t have noticed it if I were out walking, but with your photos, I can look at the intricate designs and patterns of flowers. Some of them are quite wonderful.

They use the same seed-spreading strategy as the dandelion but on a much larger scale. The seed head on a dandelion is about 1.5 inches in diameter: on the salsify, it is about 5 inches and the Salsify grows 2 to 3 feet tall.

Our native “dandelions” go through much the same process, although I’m not sure if multiple days are involved. Every article I’ve found says only that they open in the morning and close by noon. I have seen that. For quite some time I wondered why fields filled with the flowers “disappeared” in the afternoon. Eventually, I figured it out. Now, I need to track some flowers next spring and see if they open and close multiple times.

Salisify is still in its blooming period here. I will try to track them and see what they do. The next few days will be dark and rainy and I suspect they will mostly stay closed. They are also a flower that tracks the sun. Perhaps they close in mid day because that has caused them to have stiff necks!

[…] on blogs after two weeks of travel and family time, I discovered a similar puffball in a post from Montana Outdoors, together with a photo showing yellow salsify in bud and in flower. Eventually, I learned that the […]